Nope. I’ve been repeatedly told that what people do with their own private sex life isn’t anyone’s business, but since folks can point fingers at The Hypocrite Josh Duggar, it’s a moral imperative that we share it with everyone.

The Hypocrite Josh Duggar, it’s a moral imperative that we share it with everyone.

Isn’t this a form of victim blaming? He was asking for it?

And for what end is this necessary? All the people that were fans of the christian family morality show are still believers even after Josh’s fall from grace. Meanwhile the other side is pointing fingers and feeling superior, which is not productive emotions and it is only going to contribute to the gap within our communities.

OK… fuck Josh Duggar, he got what he deserved and maybe the uninitiated future generations will see this hypocrisy and make better choices for their belief system. But what about the millions(?) of lives that are going to be impacted by the rest of the data that will likely soon be public? This is stolen data, and not all of these people will “deserve” to be outed.

The important question is not whether this is “OK” or “Not OK”. It’s what significance privacy really has in society. It’s well established that state security forces have an almost godlike view into your private life, but that’s easy to ignore because we very rarely (if ever) see the repercussions of it on a personal level.

This hack shows how the compromise of privacy can have a real and personally devastating impact. Of course, many people affected by this hack aren’t perfect angels themselves, but that’s the thing about privacy: when it’s stripped away, none of us are the angels we claim to be!

The ability for others to expose us is a form of power, and we willingly give it over when we fail to value privacy highly.

Did I miss it or was the original post longer? There is no divulging of information by Xeni, just a straight-up reporting of facts. This isn’t digging and exposing dirty secrets, but rather reporting the damned news. No matter how you feel on the subject it’s a story that is important right now. Privacy isn’t going to be won by sticking fingers in our ears and singing.

adultery, as Adam Johnson put it, “is a moral misdemeanor,” something the law does not even punish. To destroy someone’s reputation and life over it is so wildly out of proportion to the actual transgression.

This reasoning is kinda weak though. The law doesn’t punish it, so neither should society? It’s weird to speaking of “someone’s reputation” like it’s a possession that they’re entitled to. Your reputation is the emergent property of the opinions that many other people hold about you. It is, like it or not, a communal possession.

If you think people have an unfair opinion of you because of inaccuracies, then try to correct them. If they have a flawed philosophy, then try to change their mind. If those things prove difficult or impossible, than sure, bemoan the injustice of your community. But don’t insist that they not think bad of you simply because it would destroy “your reputation”.

You make a good point, though I think it’s a legitimate discussion to have given that the policy of BB and many other sites during The Fappening was to not report when new celebrity photos were released. And I think @vonbobo makes a fair comparison there; these are details of someone’s private life which were obtained through a hack.